single payer

Hey, Trudeau, your “most expensive (HEALTH CARE) system in the world cannot meet the public’s needs.”
“Canada’s healthcare, to paraphrase Hillary, ‘leaves no citizen behind,’ but THIS MOST EXPENSIVE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD CANNOT MEET THE PUBLIC’S NEEDS. Although Canada’s Universal healthcare is excellent once the person is in the system, the key words are “in the system,” and it’s not always “universal,” with wealthier provinces better funded than others. It is true that their efficiency channels the funds more to care than to administration, but patients are assessed in terms of “outcome” and what is acceptable to the voters. This is reminiscent of Sarah Palin’s warning of death panels, where the medical boards evaluate the person’s age and quality of life before deigning to provide costly medication and therapy.”

They Paved Canada and Put Up a Parking Lot! AND OTHER PROBLEMS WITH SOCIALIST CANADA!!

The cover of the August 2017 issue of Rolling Stone magazine displays the image of Justin Trudeau, and the first headline, “Justin Trudeau, Why Can’t He Be Our President?”

Aside from his not being an American, the American people have finally elected to withdraw from their detrimental socialism and return to our Constitutional Republic. Unfortunately, Canadians have reversed their course toward a more intense socialism.

Trudeau promised real change, the same vague promise made by then-candidate President Obama in 2008. To reflect his multiculturalism, Trudeau chose a cabinet of thirty, based not on competence, but on gender, ethnicity, and disabilities, yet there appears to be not one observant Jew among them to handle the antisemitism in schools and media and to represent the one percent Jewish population most victimized by hate crimes in an increasingly dangerous Canada. He pledged to legalize recreational marijuana, and to change the electoral system, except that he finds this to be unnecessary now that the very process got him elected.

A globalist, Trudeau promised to welcome 25,000 more Syrian refugees in 2016, without vetting facilities, compared to the 10,000 accepted by the Conservatives. Interestingly, immediately following the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, he accepted 33,200 refugees, a number that soon became 46,700, representing the same belief system and increasing violence to that one percent and more. I am reminded of the song, “They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot.”

The Trojan Horses!

Canadian-born, then-15-year-old Omar Khadr, had been taken by his father to join Al Qaeda. Captured at 16, he pled guilty to planting ten landmines and murdering an American soldier by throwing a grenade at Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer, in a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan. US Sgt. Layne Morris was also severely wounded by the explosion and blinded in one eye. Convicted, and after serving eight of his 40-year-sentence in Guantanamo, the 24-year-old Khadr was released to Canada where he would spend the remainder of his sentence.

Despite his being dropped into a war zone by his own father, however, he sued the Canadian government for breaching his rights (as a minor) under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and received $10.5 million and an apology from the Canadian government. Years before, Omar’s father had been arrested and imprisoned for being an Al Qaeda financier in the jihad bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan, and his mother wanted to raise her six children outside of Canada, away from Western social influences. This is just one of many unvetted families who have emigrated to the west. Trudeau has indeed brought change. Instead of this family’s paying for their crimes, they are receiving payment for their crimes. Inviting and rewarding terrorism has resulted in increased crime against Canada’s Jewish citizens and will ultimately affect all infidels. (ME THINKS A WALL IS NECESSARY AT THE CANADIAN BORDER.)

Honor killings are on the rise in Canada, sanctioned by sharia, blamed on the challenging process of integration but never experienced with previous immigrants. They include a 16-year-old daughter of Pakistanis who was killed for wanting to wear western clothes and get a part-time job, like her peers; a 19-year-old daughter whose crime was to stay out all night; a first-wife and three daughters found drowned in their vehicle in a canal, and 13 other such cases under investigation.

The results of Trudeau’s tenure in office thus far range from disappointing to disconcerting. Unable to cap Canada’s budget deficit at $30 billion over three years as expected, after a year in office, Trudeau blames the previous administration for weak economic growth. Considering Trump’s roaring economic growth within his first six months, Trudeau’s excuse is feeble. And, rather than keep his promise to help to defeat ISIS, he has promised humanitarian support for Iraqis and Syrians.

Rolling Stone magazine also bore the headline, “How the Trump administration is destroying the EPA.” The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an agency of the U.S. federal government, which was created to protect human health and the environment by enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress. Created in 1970, this bureaucracy had burgeoned, by 2016, to 15,376 full-time employees, with a budget of $8.1 billion. The Trump administration proposed a 31% budget cut to $5.7 billion and to eliminate a fourth of the agency jobs. This is improvement, not destruction.

The EPA’s increased jurisdiction has encroached on private property, making it more difficult for farmers, ranchers, those in agriculture and homebuilding to meet stringent water supply regulations. The US Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Business, The American Farm Bureau Federation and others filed a lawsuit to stop the EPA, which uses the pressure of social media for covert propaganda for their own purposes, violating laws and increasing prices of produce. Farmers depend on a fair regulatory system that protects the environment and does not force them to raise strangling prices on consumers.

As Mark Levin explained, “The EPA is destroying the middle class; it’s destroying working people in this country; it’s destroying coal miners; it’s destroying oil jobs; it’s destroying trucking jobs. The EPA is destroying our smokestack industries. The EPA is doing more damage to our economy and hardworking men and women in this country than any country in the world. The environmental movement is a communist movement.”

Complying with EPA regulations costs the U.S. economy $353 billion per year — more than 30 times its budget, more than Denmark’s entire national GDP in 2011. The annual cost of the global warming industry is, conservatively, $1.5 trillion, enough to reduce our taxes and national debt – for the “possibility” of reducing our temperature by 0.048°C (0.086°F) by the end of the century, the same temperature reduction one experiences traveling down an elevator.

By shrinking its budget to two-thirds, its workforce to one-fifth, and limiting its regulatory powers, Trump is redefining and narrowing the EPA’s focus to its original purpose of 1970, to improve our water and air while also cultivating job growth. Superfund sites (land previously used for chemical dumps) will fall under the purview of the states, rather than further drain the federal budget.

MORE ON HEALTH CARE:

CONSTITUTION.COM

Brian Lindenberg | April 16, 2012

In my last article for BenefitsCanada.com, I compared and contrasted the state of healthcare in this country at the time that the basic principles for the Canada Health Act were conceived (in 1961) and today.

As the federal government is about to undertake a review of this legislation, it’s important that all Canadians formulate a point of view on the future of our healthcare system. Employers in particular have a vested interest in the outcome of these deliberations, given the interrelationship between the public system and employee benefits programs.

First, an important acknowledgement: the healthcare debate is charged with emotion. Canadians from all walks of life have different experiences with our healthcare system, and these form our opinions. My own experiences with our system have been generally favourable—others I know have had completely difference experiences. Additionally, there are those Canadians who are also health professionals working within the system who are constantly asked to do more with less. The perspectives of the multiple stakeholders are of equal importance in the deliberations of the future of healthcare in this country. Weighing each perspective is the next-to-impossible task put before the government as it develops a template for Canada’s healthcare system that will last another 50 years.

So with this very important caveat, let’s consider THREE THINGS WORKING WELL IN OUR CURRENT system and SIX THINGS THAT DO NOT!

What works well

No Canadian is left behind – Unlike in the U.S., no citizen of this country is denied access to healthcare based on whether or not he or she can afford to pay. This is a point of pride for many Canadians and clearly distinguishes us from our neighbours to the south. Universal healthcare defines us as Canadians.

Excellent standard of care – Once you are in the system, the standard of care is excellent. For example, health outcomes in the areas of cardiovascular disease and many forms of cancer are far better than in the U.S., which suggests that we are doing many things right. Of course, the operative words here are “once you are in the system.” Clearly, reasonable access to care is an issue that this country must address. (??? HOW COME I MET SO MANY CANADIANS WHEN MY WIFE AND I SPENT SIX WEEKS, FOLLOWED BY MANY VISITS, TO MAYO CLINIC???)

Funds go to healthcare, not administration – For the most part, our Canadian system efficiently allocates funds between healthcare provision and healthcare administration. For every dollar spent on healthcare funding, far less gets spent on administration than in countries such as the U.S. Our system is FAR FROM PERFECT, but in relative terms, it is not bad.

What does not work well

Our healthcare system is costly – Canada has one of the most expensive healthcare systems in the world. We can look to many OTHER COUNTRIES to see SUPERIOR HEALTH FOR LESS MONEY. Our single-payer model works in theory, but, in practical terms, it has not delivered the results that one would have necessarily expected with respect to value for money.

Healthcare decision-making is political – Healthcare decisions are often made based on “political palatability” or what’s acceptable to the voting public versus what makes sense from a financial sustainability perspective or in terms of health outcomes. The decision-making process is complicated and often slow, and results in small incremental change rather than fundamental change. We are likely at a point in time where we need to ask the tough questions—but the politics of decision-making will get in the way and we may not get to where we need to be.

ACCESS to care is A SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM – Restrictions on government funding has limited access to care—wait-lists are routine, and Canadians are increasingly having difficulties accessing the services of family physicians. The system has not kept up with the demands and expectations of the patient.

The healthcare system is NOT VERY NIMBLE – Our healthcare system is huge and, therefore, not very nimble. Although many provinces are trying to change this, our system remains focused on acute and chronic care—addressing the problem once it becomes a problem. Most experts agree that the focus should shift to prevention and health promotion. This is a monumental shift that is going to take time. The system has also not kept up with the changing face of illness and treatment. For example, physical health remains the primary focus of the system while mental illness represents a significant cost to the Canadian economy and society. Drug therapy is used extensively in the treatment of injury and disease, yet these costs fall largely outside of the public system.

NOT ALL CANADIANS ARE TREATED THE SAME – We have a UNIVERSAL healthcare system and yet—in some respects—this is also A MISREPRESENTATION. HEALTH CARE across the country is far from consistent with access to care defined, in part, by your province of residence. And this gap will only get larger as resource-rich provinces such are Alberta and Saskatchewan are able to invest more on a per capita basis than the other provinces. Health transfer payments are supposed to compensate for these funding imbalances; however, the fact of the matter remains—our healthcare system is far from universal.

So where to from here? Many of the basic principles embedded in the Canada Health Act still work. However, this important piece of legislation needs to be modernized to reflect the realities of today.(MAYBE IT NEEDS TO BE REPEALED AND REPLACED). The principles of public administration and the guidelines for what is “medically necessary” in particular need to be reviewed to ensure that whether what was anticipated in 1961 still works today. And we need to ask the hard questions—the questions no politician wants to ask—to ensure that we establish the most appropriate path for our future.

We can probably all agree on the objective—to develop a framework for a cost-effective, efficient healthcare system that responds to the medical needs of all Canadians. How we get there is subject to debate. But we do need to get there, and the debate needs to start now.

Brian Lindenberg is a senior partner and the health and benefits leader at Mercer Canada. He has more than 30 years of experience in the employee benefits field.
These are the views of the author and not necessarily those of Benefits Canada.